River Forest Man Steps Forward to Help Wife Get a Kidney

Posted By Nora Dudley, Community Contributor

Two Loyola University Medical Center patients from River Forest played a critical role in the National Kidney Registry's record-breaking 1,000th kidney paired exchange transplant. This is the first program in the world to facilitate 1,000 kidney transplants of this kind.

"The paired exchange transplant movement has allowed recipients with incompatible donors to receive a kidney transplant," said Amy Lu, MD, division director, abdominal transplantation, Loyola University Health System. "This program wouldn't be possible without the resources the National Kidney Registry provides and the donors who have stepped forward to help those in need of a lifesaving kidney transplant."

The first transplant in this chain began at University of California San Francisco Medical Center. The 1,000th transplant took place at University of Cincinnati. Other transplants in the chain occurred at the Cleveland Clinic, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Lahey Clinic, University of Minnesota Medical Center, Froedtert Hospital, VCU Medical Center and Loyola University Medical Center.

Zelda Brown received a kidney through the chain at Loyola on Wednesday, March 12. This was the third kidney she has received. Brown developed hypertension, which led to her first transplant from a deceased donor in 1995. Her body later rejected this kidney, and she required a second donation from her brother Chris in 2003. When this kidney began to fail, Brown was told that she would need a new kidney to save her life. She did not have an ideal donor match, so her husband Jerome Woodson stepped forward and offered to donate a kidney to an anonymous compatible donor. This made Brown eligible in turn for a donation from another compatible donor identified through the National Kidney Registry. Woodson's surgery took place on Thursday, March 13.

"God's will was for me to help someone," Woodson said about donating a kidney to a stranger.

Patients typically wait as long as 5 to 10 years to receive a kidney from a deceased donor. Having a living donor can eliminate this wait. But in one-third of such cases, a transplant cannot be done, because the immune systems of the patient and a willing donor aren't compatible. A paired exchange transplant provides an innovative solution to this problem. In this type of transplant, an incompatible donor of a patient gives a kidney to another patient with an incompatible donor in order for his or her loved one to receive a kidney from a compatible donor in the chain.